42-day detention could be dropped in another climbdown for Gordon Brown

Legislation allowing terror suspects to be detained for 42 days could be
dropped in another climbdown by Gordon Brown.

By Graham Tibbetts

11:21AM BST 06 Oct 2008

It is expected that the Bill will be defeated when it returns to the House of Lords this week.

The Government has reportedly decided not to use the Parliament Act to force it through after peers reject it, effectively signalling the end of the legislation.

Ministers have admitted that there is not "a cat in Hell's chance" of the Bill reaching the statute book.

It would be the latest humiliation for Mr Brown, who has already been forced into about-turns on the abolition of the 10p tax rate and compensation for workers who lost their pensions.

The Prime Minister, who unveiled his plans to extend pre-trial detention in December last year, had to mount a concerted campaign to get the legislation through the Commons in June.

It followed a number of terror attacks, including the attempted car bombing at Glasgow airport.

Mr Brown's predecessor, Tony Blair had sought a 90-day period of detention without charge but was defeated after a backbench rebellion. MPs instead voted for the period to be increased from 14 days to 28 in the Terrorism Act 2006.

The current proposal has been fatally undermined by opposition from a growing number of senior figures in the fight against terrorism.

The latest criticism comes from Andy Hayman, who was the policman in charge of anti-terrorism operations across Britain.

Mr Hayman, former Assistant Commissioner for Special Operations at the Metropolitan police, said the proposed mechanism for triggering the emergency detention power was "not fit for purpose".

He said that the concessions given to ensure the Counter-Terrorism Bill passed through the Commons had rendered it "bureaucratic, convoluted and unworkable".

"The draftsman's pen has introduced so many hoops to be jumped through that a police case for detaining a terror suspect will become part of the political game," he wrote in an article for the Times.

"It would have been my job to make these proposals work, but just trying to understand them gives me a headache."

Mr Hayman expressed his surprise that Mr Brown should seek to extend the detention period after it had proved so damaging for Mr Blair.

"I remain curious as to what prompted this rethink," he said.

Other figures who have opposed the extention include Sir Ken Macdonald QC, the director of public prosecutions, and Baroness Manningham-Buller, former head of MI5, who attacked it in her maiden speech in the Lords.